“Calm Down” (Bathe Alone song) – Queen City Sounds and Art

BatheAlone_CalmDown1_sm — Bathe Alone, photo courtesy the artist

“Calm Down” is Bathe Alone’s concept song composed to be full of metaphors for panic attacks. The vocals are soothing like the part of your mind that goes on hold during a panic attack until it has subsided enough for you to gain some control over your nervous system and the way it escalates all the urgency in your psyche. The guitar has smaller builds and descending dynamics paralleled by the percussion and the relative intensity of the vocals. In moments the guitar arpeggios heat up and dissolve quickly. The guitar lead mid-song leaps up in fiery registers to give way to impressionistic, rhythmic notes. The song dynamics are vortices of emotional peaks and dramatic contrasts much like have a cluster of panic attacks and the overarching structure of the song has its own climax and peaceful denouement. But rather than the terror, the raging anxiety and the way your breathing seems out of your control, the song is comprised of gorgeous, transporting melodies that are an analog of a benevolent form of the experience by being a heady emotionally rich listen instead of the overwhelming sense that everything is over and you can’t escape or relief from the escalating and exploding tensions inside your own mind. By being keyed into the experience, though, Bathe Alone has given us a song that can speak to where your mind takes a wrong turn with some obvious understanding of the inner dialogue and the sensations that drive it, perhaps showing how you can get ahead of the worst of it and derail its full effect. Listen to “Calm Down” on Spotify, connect with Bathe Alone at the links provided and keep an eye out for the Last Looks LP due out summer 2020.